


Get You a Bonnie

by bopeep



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Blood and Gore, Bonnie & Clyde dynamics, Buddy Cops, Chicago (City), Corruption, Crimes & Criminals, Fluff and Humor, Hitman Bucky Barnes, Ice Cream, Italian Mafia, M/M, Police Officer Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Russian Mafia, Scandal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:03:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6707233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep/pseuds/bopeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bad ain't all bad and the good ain't all good, sure, but grey area gun-for-hire Bucky Barnes thought he knew better than to do business with a badge, no matter how tarnished. </p><p>Somehow, something about Officer Rogers changed his mind, and it wasn't just the cool blue promise of blackmail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a perfectly normal, seamlessly executed, and wholly unpeculiar job until blue lights flashed in Bucky’s rear view mirror and every vital organ in him sank to his feet leaden-heavy. Where once a voice inside would have told him to cut his losses and run, fly into the darkness and hide as protocol demanded, he heard nothing but a drone of rushing blood. Without thinking, he pulled over. He couldn’t stop himself. Something pulled him over. He rolled down his window as the cop approached.  
  
“Good evening, sir,” the officer said brusquely, nodding a greeting. Bucky blinked away an ebbing frustration with himself. He didn't know if he had it in him to talk himself out, not tonight, not anymore. _I'm too young to feel this old_ , he thought.  
  
_Least you still got time, pal,_ said the folded body in the trunk, in his head.  
  
_Borrowed_ , Bucky thought.   
  
“Shit, I was going too fast. I’m sorry,” Bucky tripped over his words, hoping the fear in his eyes looked like the normal human amount for getting pulled over. “And I’m sorry for swearing, also, now. Shit. Hold on, I’ll get you my license. I was speeding.” He dug in his pockets for his wallet, expression and tone caught somewhere between a defensive, awkward schtick to get out of the ticket and the genuine, new panic rising in the background that looked like his boss taping her watch impatiently. The mark was past due.  
  
“A lot, yeah,” the cop said, the tenor of his voice almost finding appreciation. “You do know it’s 30 here, right?” Bucky handed him his ID, only just now looking into the officer’s face. He was young, no older than Bucky himself, and next-door handsome. Bucky tried not to size him up too obviously. Be a shame to hit that pretty face. His gun was in the glove compartment, but he banished the thought.  
  
“Right. The park zone,” he said. The officer nodded.  
  
“Yeah. Kids, dogs, ice cream trolleys.”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“I clocked you at 52, Mister...” the officer looked down at the license, “Mr. Barnes.”  
  
“I know. I mean, I didn’t know that exactly. I’m sorry. It was for a good reason.” Bucky’s phone chimed three times on the seat and the officer noticed. “I wasn’t texting, I swear.”  
  
“‘Sat so?” The officer crossed his arms over an impossibly broad chest. Bucky swallowed hard.  
  
“I swear to God, I was not texting. Here, look at my history.”  
  
“That’s not necess---” The policeman looked taken aback by Bucky’s honesty as he thrust his cell into the officer’s hands. “Um. Clint says he’s sorry he couldn’t join you, 'go get 'em, champ, you got nothing better to do.'”  
  
“Oh.” Bucky slumped in his seat. “Thanks.” The cop handed him back the phone, not bothering to look any more closely at it. There was a second of silence, each waiting for the other to get on with the procedure but weirdly hesitant. The broken body in the trunk hummed absently in Bucky's mind, waiting patiently to see daylight. Bucky willed it quiet. The officer cleared his throat.  
  
“So... you have no plans tonight?”  
  
“I didn’t lie about having a good reason, officer---” Bucky looked to the pin on the broad blue chest, “Officer Rogers, I swear to God. I mean I don’t, have any plans, but I was just going fast because---”  
  
“Do you want to make some? I mean---”  
  
“---my little sister just needs her--- sorry, what did you say?” Bucky did such a double take his head spun. _The cop did_ _not just insinuate---  
_  
“Your sister?” Officer Rogers quirked an eyebrow. “Is everything alright?”  
  
“She’s up here at the park. Playing soccer. She doesn’t have her whiffer. She’s asthmatic and---” On the seat next to him was a conspicuous red symbicort inhaler.  
  
“You should get that to her right away. I’ll follow you to the parking lot.” Rogers was already trotting back to his car before Bucky could really explain. He turned his headlights back on and turned out into the street, the squad car following. Bucky glanced at the cop in his rear view mirror and sighed heavily.  
  
“We in the shit now,” he muttered to himself. “Stay cool. He didn’t ask to search the vehicle, he didn’t run your plates, we’re doing fine. Deep breaths.” Bucky breathed in and out, shaking. The engine rattled similarly with wear, the kind that doesn’t come but with age and travel, like bones in a bucket. “Goddamn fucking miracle he didn’t run the plates. How is that possible. Miracles are real. Play it cool, nice and cool…” He watched his speedometer like a hawk. There was no reason to take advantage of whatever the hell this kindness was, though Bucky felt wound up like an eight day clock. Would it be better or worse to be arrested in front of an entire soccer team of little girls? If nothing else, he needed to park with his trunk facing away from the kids; nobody under the age of twenty needed to see that sort of thing less than six hours before bed. Maybe he should text Clint back. _Emergency, need back-up, are we allowed to stuff cops this week?_ That would not look good if his phone was subpoenaed, that was for damn sure. And he’d used up all but one of his Get Out of Jail Free cards with the syndicate. Surely you had to keep one for the Big Bad, whatever and whenever that was. Speeding in a park zone, body in the trunk or not, couldn’t possibly be Bucky’s Big Bad. He’d never live it down.  
  
Then again, he could still run. He could take off, right now. His boss never liked a flashy chase but sometimes you had to get things dirty to come out clean.  
  
On the other hand, holy christ was Rogers cute. _For a pig, that is_. He was all sharp lines in his uniform and all soft light in his eyes. _In another life,_ Bucky thought as he pulled into a parking spot across from the soccer field, squad car beside, _in another life this could have been interesting._  
  
Not that the present situation was so very mundane. Rogers got out of the car and scanned the field of kids. Bucky took his cue and shouted for Becca, waving his arms. He didn’t want to go to them; especially not with a cop in tow. _Parents and their gossip,_ he thought. But he wasn't lying to the cop when he said he was speeding to get her the inhaler. He just also happened to be speeding to a warehouse afterward with some evidence to destroy and some money to collect, which, if he was honest, was also going to the girl he was signaling on the soccer field.  
  
“Hey! C’mere.” He gestured wildly and Becca noticed, leaving the group to jog towards the lot, a furious embarrassment painted all over her small face.  
  
“Bucky, I don’t need it!” She groaned. “I’m doing just fine. Everybody can hear you, why do you have to do this every time?!”  
  
“I’m gonna do it until you remember to take it yourself! If something happens, you could be in a lot of trouble, Becca," Bucky tried not to lecture too angrily, conscious of the eavesdropper in blue. "If you’re not going to be responsible I’m going to be here every time. Better embarrassed than dead!”  
  
“You’re so dramatic. You didn’t need to bring a police escort, oh my God.” Becca noticed Rogers approaching slowly and buried her face in her hands. Bucky held out the red inhaler.  
  
“Just put it in your soccer bag and leave it there, better safe than sorry,” Rogers said suddenly, using a stronger police voice than he’d used with Bucky, he noticed. “I had bad asthma as a kid. Hate it all you want, but it’s not worth the pain you’ll cause others if something happens.” Becca took the plastic inhaler reluctantly.  
  
“Did my brother call you to come here with him?” she asked.  
  
“No, I’m--- I’m Bucky’s friend. He’s just worried about you. He loves you, y’know.” Bucky couldn’t hide his surprise; his mouth dropped open and he looked right at the cop, gaping. Luckily, Becca continued to look at the grass as she pawed at it awkwardly with her cleats.  
  
“I know,” Becca mumbled. “I know that.”  
  
“Alright, get back out there, then. Okay if we stay and watch?” Rogers asked.   
  
“What?” Both Barneses asked in unison, impossibly equal in their horror. Bucky still hadn’t torn his stare from Rogers, who looked cool as a cucumber. In fact, he laughed.  
  
“He’s got no plans, and I’m off-duty. We won’t embarrass you, I promise," he said.  
  
“Uhh, Rogers, I don’t think she---” Bucky attempted recovery but Becca suddenly brightened.  
  
“Sure!” She exclaimed, another nail in the coffin that was Bucky’s night thus far. “Prove to you both I don’t need any puffs.” She stuck her tongue out and ran back to the field full-speed. Bucky gawked.  
  
“That was awfully nice of you,” he said slowly, waiting for the shoe to drop. This was the weirdest arrest he’d ever been a part of, officially. “You don’t have to---”  
  
“You got any lawn chairs in the back or anything?” Rogers gestured to Bucky’s sedan. Panic returned in an adrenaline flood.  
  
“No!” Bucky said too quickly and fumbled for recovery. “No, uh. They’re in our mom’s van.” Rogers smiled broadly.  
  
“Soccer mom has a mini-van. Typical,” he said. “Listen, I’ve been on the other end of the inhaler situation before. We can let the speeding slide tonight, I’m really not looking to bust you for being a good brother.” Bucky let out a sigh of relief vastly disproportionate to the crime he was currently discussing.  
  
“Oh Jesus. Oh thank you,” he huffed. “But you don’t have to stay and watch or anything, I never stay longer than---”  
  
“Maybe we should! What if she’s a pro and you never knew?” Rogers folded his arms again, a frustrating sass curling his smile like a challenge. “Bet you your speeding ticket we have a good time.”  
  
“You already said you were going to let it slide,” Bucky pointed out. He nervously ran his hands through his hair and behind his ears, shifting his weight from one food to the other. _This entire interaction should have ended by now,_ he thought. The officer looked at his watch and switched off his radio.  
  
“Fair point. Then how about the stolen vehicle?” Bucky’s heart stopped altogether and left town.  
  
“What?” He managed, dumbstruck. A cheer went up on the field as a scrimmage goal was scored. Rogers raised his eyebrows.  
  
“Or whatever’s inside it. Gotta be something good in there,” he said. “I don't know, guns? I know you're not carrying, otherwise this would already be over. You ice anybody recently? They don’t call you the Winter Soldier for nothing, right?” The words seemed to echo in the hollow of Bucky’s chest. _He knew._ “Want to go watch some soccer with me?”  
  
“Are you--- are you serious?” Bucky stumbled over his words, panic and fear butting heads with confusion and, oddly, betrayal. “Are you blackmailing me into a date right now?”  
  
“Who said anything about a date? Unless you want to get ice cream, we’re just two buddies watching your little sister practice on a Thursday night,” he grinned. “I’ve been looking for you for a while, Buck. Now that I’ve found you… I don’t think I care to see you disappear. Especially now that I know you’re such a softy.” The officer scanned Bucky’s face, smug and, if Bucky had any experience reading people, a little giddy. Rogers rested his hand none-too-casually on his holstered gun. Bucky’s head began to spin. This problem went in too many directions at once, and they were so obviously in public he didn't have a solution to any of them.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, officer,” Bucky tried again. The cop shook his head.  
  
“Too late for that, Buck.”  
  
“Okay then what the fuck is happening right now, did you want to make some kind of heroic arrest speech before you dragged me in or what? Because you’re really fucking it up. And I ain’t the type to sing, if that’s what you were looking for. I’ll rot in the pen ninety years before that happens,” Bucky grumbled, plopping down on the curb to put his head in his hands. “By all means, though, go right ahead, bub, you got me. I hope you get a big fat promotion. Son of a bitch.”  
  
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Rogers sat down next to him. Bucky couldn’t believe how weird this night had become. He wished Clint had ridden along like he promised.  
  
“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer present?” Bucky asked, a sour delinquent cornered. Rogers laughed easily, like this was going very well on his end. Bucky resented that.  
  
“I can’t arrest you, Buck. I need you. Just one question, and we’ll go sit and watch,” he promised.  
  
“Fine. Then shoot.”  
  
“Can’t do that either," the officer sighed. "Gotta be alive."  
  
“Oh my God, what is your question, you punk?” Bucky felt his already-shallow well of patience scrape an empty bottom. Rogers was infuriating, and surely not just because he was making Bucky late for a burial.  
  
“I’ve seen you pull some impressive escapes. Really, I have.” The cop said.  
  
“Is that your question or a compliment?” Bucky watched him carefully. Rogers avoided his gaze.  
  
“How come you didn’t run? Why didn’t you pull into an alley, break through a garage, hell, you could be running right now. Why aren’t you running?” Rogers asked. Bucky blinked.  
  
“Sounds exhausting, to be honest. I had two jobs to do tonight. Only one of them was important to me,” he gestured over his shoulder, where Becca was now practicing footwork with a partner. “If I got myself caught, at least they’d take care of her and my ma. There’s nothing else I worry about.”  
  
“Not even yourself?”  
  
“No. Can’t in my line of work, now can you. Believe you me, I’m tired, Rogers. I’m real fucking tired,” he sighed. “That personal enough an answer for you? You want me to testify to it? It's a shitty job.”  
  
“Yeah. Okay.” The officer seemed to have made up his mind about something, and he held out an arm to Bucky. “C’mon. Let’s go watch your sister play.”  
  
“Are you fucking serious?" Bucky felt himself barking, and he could hear the body snickering smugly in his mind. "Rogers, we’re not friends! If you’re taking me in, take me in!”  
  
“No, and I fucking _am_ serious. You can call me Steve.” Bucky glared at his outstretched hand and didn’t take it as he got up.  
  
“And your friendship is supposed to absolve me of my sins in the eye of the state, _Steve_?”  
  
“No. But your loyalty can save us both, if you’re willing to help me. Quid pro quo, Clarice.” Bucky stared at him in silence, sizing him up. He didn’t think he could be a double agent, if that was what this punk was asking.   
  
_Give him a chance,_ the trunk body sing-songed. _You only live once, right? Ha!_  
  
“I’m listening,” he finally said. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it. Steve nodded.  
  
“I’ll tell you all about it over ice cream.” Bucky rolled his head back in exasperation as they walked idly towards the field.  
  
“One, don’t do the Hannibal thing and then bring up food. Two, I thought you said this wasn’t a date,” he reminded the cop. Not that if it suddenly were, that would be out of the question or even objectionable for this weird fucking evening that was going to end in one trouble or another anyway.  
  
“It isn’t,” Steve insisted. “But we’re going to want it, when I tell you what I need.” That last word hung in the air heavy, and Bucky felt a shiver of fear that he would never admit, hardened criminal that he was.  
  
“Am I in a position to say no?” he asked. Steve shrugged.  
  
“Consent is important. But I’m guessing you didn’t ask your trunk buddy before you gutted him, so I’m going to let you decide how to play this one, Barnes.” Steve stopped out of earshot from the bank of parents and turned to Bucky. “Not that I’m holding all of the cards.”  
  
“Just most of ‘em. Okay,” Bucky grumbled. “Alright, fine. Not like this night’s getting less weird. Let’s get some goddamn ice cream and watch my little sister play in the park and you can tell me who you need whacked, pal.” They made a turn towards the little ice cream cart parked on the sidewalk closer to the jungle gyms. Bucky tried not to trudge. Steve seemed light as a feather, spring in his step.  
  
“Great. Are you a fruit or a chocolate kind of guy?” he asked, all stars and hearts in his voice. Bucky shook his head as the ridiculous scenario continued to play out in front of him. A murderer and a policeman get ice cream, like a fucking punchline he couldn't quite nail down.  
  
“You have no idea how to conduct business with a hit man, do you.”  
  
“Well, I’m buying, aren’t I?” Steve grinned, and Bucky couldn’t help but marvel at the absurdity and beauty there. “I’d say so far business is going great.”  
  
Bucky swore he could hear narration, a booming baritone over a big band score that came mockingly from the direction of his trunk: _and that’s how one of the most notorious modern crime duos in Chicago history first met, first argued, and first kissed in the same westside park where their romantic two month killing spree would later end in a spray of bullets and spilled blood!_  
  
_Strictly business_ , he told the body. _For now._  
  
Steve Rogers handed him an ice cream bar as the streetlights came on and the sun settled into a lavender evening.  
  
Strictly business.


	2. Chapter 2

But business can get dirty, Bucky reminded himself. Ugly. Bloody. Business is a nasty business in and of itself. Maybe better not to consider it business at all, when what it really was, was fucking weird. Call a spade a spade, after all. It might be nothing! It was probably nothing. Steve’s shoulder was touching his. He wanted not to notice, but notice he fucking _did_.  
  
_Your ice cream’s melting, hardass,_ sang the body in the trunk. Bucky didn’t dignify it with a response.  
  
The fireflies were just warming up and Becca waved at Bucky and Steve from her midfielder’s position. Bucky raised his untouched ice cream bar in salute. She was quite fast, and so happy, but his brotherly knot of worry lost none of its tension. Probably This Fucking Cop to his right wasn’t helping. No; he definitely wasn’t helping. He had chocolate dripping onto his hands and he was lapping it up like an oblivious dog.  
  
“You know, my expectations weren’t that high for this whole soccer mom experience but this is really nice. This is great,” Steve said. “How can you get any more American than this? Really perfect.” Bucky glared at his Good Humor bar.  
  
“I’m glad you’re having a good time, pal, because _my_ American dream doesn’t typically include incarceration.”  
  
“Bucky.” The guy had the nerve to address him like an old friend. If Bucky had a free hand he might have decked him. Well, a free hand and room on the Aggravated Assault space of his already more than decorated Felony Bingo card. “You won’t get caught. You’ve got my word.”  
  
“Okay, see, you say that like we’re about to do something stupid,” Bucky said, turning from Becca to look the punk straight in the face. Steve wasn’t intimidated. He smiled, instead.  
  
“I like that we’re a _we_ already. That’s a good team in the making.” Bucky groaned.  
  
“Start talking. This is hurting my head.”  
  
“Fair enough. How’s the ice cream?” Steve asked, already halfway through his own. Bucky continued to stare at him, stone-faced, as it began to drip down to his hands. If Steve’s eyes dropped to the chocolate with something like interest Bucky patently ignored it and any lurch in his stomach that followed.  
  
“Gonna taste so good once you stop avoiding the question,” Bucky said. Steve sighed.  
  
“Right. You’re right,” he relented. “Are you familiar with the Red Pandas?” The cop treated the name like a poisonous plant. There weren’t many folks in the area who were unfamiliar, and bless their precious oblivion if they were.  
  
“You know I am, if you know what I do,” Bucky huffed. He should have known it would be stupid; the whole setup reeked of stupid. This poor dumb baby cop. _Red Pandas!_ Now the joke had a punchline. “We haven’t been cool with the Pans since the turf split in 2002 when Hydra splintered. If you’re looking to take them down, I’m not the guy. I don’t even work for the guy that might be the guy. The guy is God, and probably He wouldn’t do it for you either.” Bucky took a punctuating bite of his ice cream bar. The melting chocolate shell fractured and became a dire situation he had to remedy quickly. He shoved half of it in his mouth and Steve tried not to laugh at him, yet undeterred in what would surely, Bucky predicted, be an impossibly stupid, stupidly impossible request.  
  
“Right. No, of course I’m not going to take them down. I mean, I am, but---”  
  
“You’re fucking kidding me!” Bucky spat around a mouthful of cream. The second half of his ice cream bar fell into the grass and if felt like a metaphor for the whole goddamn day.  
  
“Let me get the whole thing out and you can be incredulous at the end, okay? Deal?” Steve paused, and Bucky swallowed, listening, if petulantly. “I ended up on the receiving end of a couple of files I wasn’t supposed to. I asked a few questions, and they started giving me busy work. It was all information about your syndicate.”  
  
“About me?”  
  
“Here and there,” Steve obviously lied, “but that’s not my point.” Becca made a streamline pass and looked over at them. Bucky held up a sticky thumbs up and Steve clapped. Bucky glared at him. “We have a lot of information. A lot. Like personal vendetta levels of a lot. But there’s nothing, _tabula fucking rasa_ , on the Red Pandas.”  
  
“Odd.”  
  
“Careful,” Steve corrected. “ _Way_ too careful. I know we’ve done work on them before. But every time I sniff anything out I get redirected. I have a lot of solid, weird proof that we’re looking at something very big and very dirty. And your group kind of got in their way, and they’re making it look like official police business to make it stop.” Bucky saw the pieces starting to fit together but didn’t particularly like it.  
  
“You’re after me? And that’s a Panda doing?”  
  
“I’m supposed to be.” Steve shrugged, digging his popsicle stick into the grass in front of him like a little grave marker. “But I think that’s because there’s a serious Panda problem in my office.”  
  
“Sounds so cute.”  
  
“Sure, until you’re dead.” Steve sprinkled a little dirt on the tiny tomb in a precious gesture. The drama, the subtle dark suited Bucky like a rainy day. A shiver hovered at the base of his spine and he knew a tide had changed somewhere in his resolve. He felt the throw of his week change in front of him, if not the rest of what might be a shorter life.  
  
“You got a death wish, Steve?”  
  
“It’s not about me,” the cop said defensively. His blue eyes darted. _W_ _hat a shit liar, this little prince. This muscly, solid and warm--- fuck._ “I just want to see some justice served and I can’t fucking do that as a cop, apparently.” Bucky couldn’t help but laugh.  
  
_What’s so funny?_ The body asked, in that roundabout-liminal way that apparently only Bucky was hearing in his Mental Wasteland.  
  
“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” he answered out loud. “The score is, we’re gonna expose Chicago officials as corrupt.” Becca started running laps with the other girls and didn’t show any sign of exhaustion yet, which was a relief.  
  
“Yes.” Steve nodded gravely. Bucky laughed harder. Chicago, for the good folks in the cheap seats, was not nor has ever been the pinnacle of political integrity. It isn’t too great a stretch to call the beautiful city infamously crooked. One might even call it a point of local pride.  
  
“Sorry, how long have you lived here?” Bucky asked through an easy grin. Steve rolled his eyes.  
  
“The irony is not lost on me, Bucky.”  
  
“And you have no personal stake in this?” The hitman asked again. Steve bristled.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I don’t believe you.”  
  
“Truth, justice, and the American way,” he said. Bucky nodded, twisting a loose strand of his hair back behind his ear casually.  
  
“Uh-huh. So that’s why you stalked a low-ranking hit man and bribed him with ice cream.”  
  
“It’s not a bribe,” he insisted. “I just thought it--- benefited us both, to work on this. We’d get these guys locked up, you’d be the hero of your gang---”  
  
“What makes my gang better than their gang? You can’t just decide we’re the good guys.” Bucky himself had never once felt remotely like a good guy. Bullying Becca into self-care or making dinner for his mother every night was about as close as he came to feeling like a decent human.  
  
“You really don’t remember me, huh.” Steve searched his face for a moment and Bucky felt distinctly unnerved.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing. It has to be you.” Steve was resolute. “I’ve been tailing you for weeks as their way of keeping me busy. If I get to take you in, make you our fake nark, I know we can start digging up the really good stuff.” _Weeks_? Bucky thought, but didn’t have time to address that worry.  
  
“My boss would never allow it,” he said, and that was the honest-to-God truth of it. Natasha would sooner wear him as a coat than even consider some ill-thought police infiltration. It couldn’t possibly end well. Steve held his ground.  
  
“I need her permission?” It threw Bucky for a loop that for the first time, someone correctly guessed he worked for a woman. But he remembered Steve was a sneaky shithead who read files and quickly shook the moment of admiration.  
  
“Yes, you do. You really goddamn do.”  
  
“Then let’s talk to her. People who run successful businesses like yours are never wholly unreasonable, they’re just professional. Take me with you to drop off--- your friend.” Steve gestured to the stolen car.  
  
_Are we friends?_ The body asked hopefully.  
  
“No,” Bucky answered, both Steve and Body, as it was becoming a habit. “What if she doesn’t like what you have to say?”  
  
“Then I made a bad choice, huh?” Steve grinned at him and Bucky almost by magnetic pull smiled back.  
  
“You do have a death wish, Steve.”  
  
“I’m ambitious.”  
  
“You’re stupid,” Bucky corrected. “And if you think I’m going anywhere with that squad car following me, you gotta be out of your mind.” He could see it clear as day: pulling up to the restaurant, an immediate firefight on the proverbial front lawn. Steve, sweet summer child, could not see this.  
  
“So I’ll drive with you,” he offered.  
  
“How can you be sure I’m not going to cap you as soon as we get out of here?” Bucky asked, but Steve called the bluff in the air right off the bat.  
  
“Listen, you’ve got your chip and I’ve got mine, alright. I trust you.” Bucky nearly jumped out of his face at that.  
  
“Why?! That’s insane!” he exclaimed, suddenly dialing back when he realized he was yelling and a pair of kids at the water fountain looked over at him. He lowered his voice. “I’m not taking you to her.”  
  
“Then I’m gonna arrest you.”  
  
“You are not. You don’t have any other plan, Rogers, I can see it in your big, dumb, blue eyes.” Bucky stared him down then and his face grew hot, meeting Steve’s glare: icy, at best, dark at the edges with all their brightness within.  
  
“Please help me,” he asked.  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“C’mon.”  
  
“ _No._ ”  
  
“This could be your way out, man!” The desperation was not lost on Bucky, but here he was, at his sister’s soccer game, with an honest to god cop who could make the whole thing go to hell with or without Bucky’s approval. He was offering trouble but Bucky was listening. “All your debts would be paid if you helped me get rid of the Pandas once and for all.”  
  
“And what do you know about my debt?” Bucky asked. It was a fair question; he'd googled himself plenty of times to know what information was ready, available, and true, and by the grace of God alone, the ugliest dirt had yet to be turned. Steve barked a cold laugh.  
  
“Enough to know this is the best and only offer you’ve got on the table and you only want to say no to _spite_ me.”  
  
“You said this isn’t about you! So why can’t you take no for an answer and leave me alone?” Bucky stood up abruptly and Steve followed, full-on spat mode engaged.  
  
“You have a record and a head thicker than a Game of Thrones book---”  
  
“ _Listen_ , fucko---”  
  
“Asshole, there are children everywhere, literally all around us---” Bucky made a lunge at him and stopped himself, hissing.  
  
“I kill people for a living and I am _losing my patience with you!_ ”  
  
“I need you! I can’t do this alone!” Steve pleaded. Bucky’s voice caught on something he didn’t want to name.  
  
“Then don’t do it at all, Mr. Good Guy.” He took a few paces away from Steve to toss his ice cream wrapper in the trash.  
  
“I have to!” Steve stalked after him. “I need you to help me, please help me! It has to be you, I want it to be you, please just throw caution to the wind and be my partner again!”  
  
“What do you mean, _again_?” Bucky’s cell rang suddenly in his pocket, an urgent angry ringtone. Steve stared at him, mouth clamped shut. Bucky kept his eyes fixed on him and the unanswered question as he held the phone up to his ear. “Barnes. I know--- I see the time. I know. No, I finished--- yes. I’ve got it. I ran into a little trouble, it’s all fine. But I’m going to swing by in a little while and you can have him. I--- please stop yelling, please trust me.”

“Let me talk to her.” Steve made a grab for the phone and Bucky dodged.  
  
“Are you out of your mind? No, Ste--- Oh god, Nat, that wasn't for---. No, absolutely not, I would never tell you no--- sorry. Yeah someone else is here, and he said he wanted to talk to you and I told him--- No Nat. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Oh my god.” Bucky handed Steve the phone slowly, like it might detonate. “She wants to speak with you.” He took the phone and tried to steady his breath.  
  
“Hi this is Steve.”  
  
“That’s nice. Why don’t I have a body in front of me right now, Steve? Is yours going to be next to it?” The voice on the other end was tired and angry. Bucky couldn’t even watch.  
  
“No ma’am I’m just--- I wanted to apologize for making Bucky late. I helped with the job, and we’re on our way right now and you can blame me for the tardiness.” There was silence on the other end for a moment.  
  
“Steve, you’re either brutally, stupendously honest, or truly terrible at lying, and either way I want to see your face when you do it. Get down here in twenty minutes and tells Barnes he’s in deep shit.”  
  
“I think he knows that ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” He remembered to breathe.  
  
“Hang up now, Steve.”  
  
‘Yes, ma’am.” Steve ended the call and turned to hand it back to Bucky, who from the curb held his face in his hands, moaning.  
  
“Oh my god.”  
  
“Get up, we gotta be at your thing in twenty minutes.” Steve put the phone in his hands. “Not the first time I’ve had to bail you out like that. Twenty minutes.”  
  
“What? Wait, what? I can’t do that, I have to take Becca home.” Bucky’s head was swimming and no important questions had been answered. Steve shrugged. The sun had slipped away completely and the practice was cleaning up. Becca was drinking water with her friends; she’d be ready to leave soon.  
  
“What if I take her home and you take the body and we meet later?” Steve suggested. Bucky scoffed.  
  
“What, for a little nightcap? No, fucking nutball, you’re not taking my sister to--- do you _already know where we live?_ ” Bucky realized, and caught himself. “Never mind, not important. She’s not going with you. And she’s not coming with us, before you suggest something actually outrageous.”  
  
“Then take me with you to take her home and then we’ll grab pastries on the way to work and you’ll be forgiven for being late!” Steve exclaimed, following him as he walked to meet her across the field. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache creeping on.  
  
“It’s like you’ve never even heard of murder, do you know that? I can’t believe this is happening.”  
  
_This is happening. Make up your mind. You already have!_  
  
“Shut up,” Bucky hissed. “I’m gonna do this with you. I’ll help. But we’re setting things right for her. And for my ma. And then none of this ever again. Okay? Deal?”  
  
“Sure." Steve stopped in the grass, shock and joy and maybe hope (Bucky wouldn't know) on his features like sunlight. "Erased.”  
  
“Erased," Bucky repeated.  
  
“If that’s what you want, yeah.” Steve held out his hand to shake. “Partners?”  
  
_In crime!_ Mr. Body sang, muffled in the tarp of Bucky's conscience and trunk. _Hope you’re willing to take a bullet for this fella, Barnes! It ends in a shoot out and no goodbye kiss!_  
  
“We’ll see.” Bucky shook on it. “But I get to be Clyde."  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was using The Red Pandas as a placeholder for so long that it stuck, so here we go!


End file.
